Owl and the Sparrow
by Nouveau Astrolatry
Summary: Professor Sycamore and OC One-Shot. After life-changing event, Augustine's brightest student discovers a shameful truth he never meant for her to find out. (Contains direct spoilers from the Pokemon X and Y games. You have been warned!)


_This story has direct spoilers to the X and Y games. Please do not read further if you do not wish to spoil crucial plot points for your Pokemon experience. This story follows my own player character, Sabine, with a similar but altered backstory to the canon. My depiction of Sycamore is only that from my imagination and what I have gathered from the game so far. I wrote this as a one-shot and do not know if I will continue the story, nevertheless, I hope you leave feedback after you are finished reading. Thank you so much ~NA_

Geosenge Town would be changed forever, a gaping hole in the centre of town a fresh reminder of Lysandre's fatal mistake. The chilling call of Xerneas pierced through the sky and it disappeared into the darkening clouds. There was a distinctly sour taste in the air.

Shauna, Tierno, Trevor and Calem kept their gaze in the air long after the legendary Pokemon had vanished. Almost as if nothing had happened, they discussed their next course of action and Shauna advised they all go back to Anistar City to continue where they had left off. A flurry of wings could be heard and they had gone.

"Sabine?"

Maybe not all of them. The Chosen turned her head slowly to look at her neighbour as he stood next to an imposing Talonflame, clicking it's claws on the ground impatiently. Her eyes were strained and expression blank.

"Uh," Calem fidgeted, there was something he was trying to say but was too hesitant.

"What is it, Calem?"

"I think of you as my friend, I always have. I just wanted to battle you because I respect you so much, you know?." He waited for a reply or even a reaction but was not given the satisfaction as she gazed back to the sink hole. After another awkward moment he sighed, "Um, see you Sabine."

When she looked back he was gone. For the first time in countless hours she was completely alone in the sprawling plain scattered with Geosenge's rubble. Not a soul was left as far as she could see.

Knees hitting the soft grass, Sabine collapsed forward and let out an emotion-filled scream. All the painful images she had seen from the Team Flare Lab and the hurt Lydandre's lies had caused coursed through her.

Her wail ceased as a large hand gripped her shoulder tightly and she looked up, mouth agape. It was the immortal man from the three thousand year tale. Too frightened to move from his grasp she looked up at the giant, bewildered.

"The man made an ultimate weapon. Using it required the life force of many Pokemon. The Pokemon granted eternal life knew this. The resurrected Pokemon left the man's side. The man was surprised and sad. He had revived it so they could be together…" His deep bumbling voice expressed agony and Sabine's empathetic eyes opened wider.

"Day after day passed, but they were never to meet. Eventually he became a mere shell of a man. A man condemned to wander forever by the light of the weapon and a Pokemon that also wanders eternally." He stood straight, releasing her shoulder and looked to the sky where Xerneas had flown, "Where is it now? What do I have to do to meet it?"

Sabine stood slowly and followed his gaze, only for a moment but when she turned to look at him..

He was gone.

She instinctively took a step forward reaching for air where the giant had been standing but a figure was infiltrating her peripheral view.

He was tall and slender, garbed in an iconic white coat. Unruly black hair that decided where it would fall over passionate blue-green eyes. The man took a tentative step forward.

"Lysandre?" the Professor inquired, an anxious tone coated his thick accent.

"He's dead." Sabine dolefully looked at the ground, the late mastermind had been a good friend to the Professor and she knew him well from the times he had visited the laboratory. Grass near her crunched and she hung her head lower avoiding eye contact with her teacher.

A soft hand pushed her chin up gently and they met each others gaze. Sabine's insides tightened and her hands quivered, finding the hem of her pleated skirt for stability. His deep eyes, full of compassion, slashed through her steady exterior and left her true demeanour bare.

"Did he cause you a lot of trouble?" He searched her but she kept silent, too rocked by the events of hours earlier. Augustine was always a gentleman and never failed to have genuine interest in his students when they came to him for questions but this was different. It felt different. Protective. Affectionate.

He continued, "I'm sincerely grateful for what you have done for Pokemon and the people of this world," he looked past her to the crater, "Lysandre he.. I always knew he desired a beautiful world. I wanted him to put his ego aside and lead everything to greater heights. I suspect I was partially to responsible for what has happened, I-"

"Augustine," Sabine sobbed, shrilly, burying her face in her palms. She couldn't deal with him trying to cover for that monster. Blaming himself..

Sycamore wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulling her in. She became hysteric and he held her closer. Her hand left her skirt and grabbed the side of his open lab coat. The material was thick and comforting. He smelt familiar, the musk scent always caught her nose whenever he drifted past her.

Breathing in deeply, Sabine's delirium subsided and she crumpled deeper into the Professor's safe grasp. "You should have seen what he was doing to those Pokemon.. He tortured them. Extracted their energy. He called it a laboratory," her voice cracked, "a laboratory."

Her legs abandoned her and the Professor followed her to the ground where he put his hands on her shoulders to keep her steady.

"Sabine, listen to me." He propped her chin to face him with warm-hearted strength, it hurt but she didn't mind. She had never seen him so stern. "That was not a lab, it was a torture house. It is not our lab."

Our lab?

"This is my fault. I set you on this path. I never expected this to happen." He trailed off but Sabine swore he had said that he should have never left her.

"It's not your fault," she replied, life coming back to her voice, "You blessed me with a goal. Something for me to work towards. You awoke ambition and passion I hadn't experienced for a long time. When I moved to Kalos I left everything behind, I was so depressed.."

"I know."

Sabine's posture changed, she pulled one shoulder away from the Professor defensively as her spine straightened, "What do you mean you know?"

She knew his acknowledgement had betrayed him as shallow panic washed over his complexion. He was flustered and suspiciously so. Never had she recognised it but he looked to be hiding something. After a moment he conceded,

"Do you know why you were accepted into my program at the Lumiose Lab for aspiring Pokemon scientists?"

Why so formal? "Because I passed the exam," Sabine answered, distrustfully.

Augustine's hands slipped from her shoulders and landed softly on the grass as his whole body went limp.

When Sabine's family moved from Hoenn, she unwillingly left her two best friends: an Altaria and a Kirlia. With no clear direction in life and void of close human relationships she descended into a dark time. Kalos was not a clean slate, it was a foreign hell. The customs were unfamiliar, the people intrusive, the language cryptic. She spent a lot of time at home with her Father away for months at a time and her Mother exploring to engross herself in the culture.

The residents either side of Sabine's house, Calem and Shauna decided she was their responsibility when they saw her uncommonly out in Vaniville Town. Their forced friendship eventually became genuine and after many months she began to speak fluently while her mannerisms assimilated. She learned that her new friends were planning to apply to a highly competitive apprenticeship with Professor Sycamore at Lumiose Laboratory. Shauna was a little young but Calem was already studying for the entrance exam.

Sabine became their study aide, holding practice exams and marking their assessments with a cheat sheet. She helped them carry books at the library and kept them company while they studied. Soon she was reading the textbooks at home for fun and by natural progression before they knew it she was studying right along side them. Sabine became more passionate about passing the exam more than anyone.

Her parents were ecstatic that she had climbed out of her depression and now possibly faced a bright future. There wasn't a lot of time left until the exam and she studied seven days a week for hours straight, desperate to prove it to herself and to everyone that she would not fail. Almost a year after she arrived in Kalos, she and Calem sat the exam. She vividly remembered jumping up and down waving the letter in her hand breathlessly and packing her bags weeks before the move to board at Lumiose Labs for half a year.

If she had not been accepted, she wasn't sure where she would be today.

"You didn't pass," Sycamore admitted miserably, "You were so close."

"I.." Bewildered, Sabine edged further away from the person she thought she had known so well.

"You don't remember me, do you?"

"What do you mean?" her tone was impatient verging on aggressive.

"A month before you took the exam, I was at your house. Koemi, your mother, she invited me because we had been in correspondence since you discovered your interest in science. She explained your story to me. I even saw you briefly as you entered the house and ran up to your room. I wouldn't see you again until orientation day at the labs."

"I got accepted on _pity_?!"

He had noticed her outrage, Sabine was an intelligent girl and it was a trait she wore like a badge of honour. His eyes shifted shamefully, "The board would never have agreed to that."

Her eyes narrowed and she slowly shook her head, not wanting to know what would come next.

"I forged the test to get you a scholarship."

Sabine's father had been right, the exam results truly were unbelievable.

"The board was suspicious when your results were matched to your profile. So you were to be sent a secondary test to your home and I would personally mediate it."

"No.."

"I forged that one too."

"No.." Sabine pushed her hands into her cheeks desperately wanting him to stop.

"Unconvinced but backed into a corner, the board decided to accept you but you would not receive scholarship payments from the school and the bills would be forwarded to your family."

"But my parents didn't pay a cent." She frowned as Sycamore was unable to look at her.

"I paid for it."

Sabine's face loosened and her fingertips gently pulled the skin on her cheeks downwards before she stood bitterly, a foul taste in her mouth, "And my second year scholarship?"

He finally focused on her optimistically, "That was all you. Once the board was convinced of your genuine ability while seeing you in action they couldn't combat it any longer. I told them all so. You hadn't had enough time to study for the entrance exam and that was the only reason you didn't-"

"Don't say it," she warned, watching as he picked himself up from the ground.

"I knew you would be the brightest student, I experienced your passion that day three years ago. You radiate excitement in the field and it's contagious. Your curiosity knows no bounds," he extended a hand to place it on her jaw and when she tried to swat it away, he clasped it in his own warm grip.

A welcomed silence came between them and as he stared into her eyes hoping for positive feedback. They didn't release hands.

"This was kind of the worst time to tell me," Sabine said cautiously, looking the the darkening sky and rumble of impending rain.

"Trevor rang to tell me you were chasing down Lysandre at the Team Flare Base, I knew it was going to be dangerous so I tried to meet you in the basement of the cafe. I searched for an hour but the place had been cleared out, a straggling admin said you had already left. They wouldn't tell me where Lysandre went and I certainly didn't know Flare HQ whereabouts." He looked defeated, "Unbelievably, I had to find out by a news update. When I saw the weapon descending from Geosenge I understood. I flew here on the fastest Swellow I owned but it was already over."

He let go of her, "I didn't want you to do this alone," he grieved, "just like I didn't want you to take that test all by yourself."

Finally her face softened, she had not expected that the man she idolized so much was as fragile as her. It somehow made him human and even though she was hurt, she could empathise with his actions.

Smiling weakly, Sabine placed her hand on his arm which caused him to reconnect their gaze, "I would have just taken the test again the year after. You said I was close, right? Maybe I could have genuinely earned the scholarship?"

"I'm sorry." He didn't break eye contact. A few small droplets fell onto her face and chest as she moved her hand to his shoulder. He spoke quickly, "We should get to shelter before it starts to-"

Ignoring his unease, Sabine's palm continued exploring to his neck and then his nape. She guided him towards her until their lips met. There was a pause as internal gears halted, the two of them realizing what was happening. His lips were buttery and they encased her with warmth. Her empty hand discovered his chest, and when she pressed deeply the geography of his ribs causing sensations in her chest.

Augustine yanked her close like he had done before, tilting his head to wrap his lips around hers. She answered, following his lead by testing the contours of his mouth. His teeth nuzzled her affectionately, a suppressed infatuation from both parties erupted in a kiss three thousand years in the making.

The Professor's tongue boldly acquainted Sabine's and they created silent poetry in tandem. The adrenaline coursed through her veins so rapidly which alerted her to depleted oxygen. She pulled away from the oral dance to come up for air. He opened his eyes to smile, cherishing the breathless girl with her soft hair under his prickly chin.

"I love you, Sabine."

When the whisper reached her ears she could no longer keep in the thankful tears disguised in rain.


End file.
